After Tuesday
by Rai van Rossum
Summary: Cameron and Chase are finally where they should be... in love. But the only reason Allison thinks she can do this is because House isn't there to distract her. That is, until he asks her to come back. Trouble in paradise?
1. No More Labcoats

**Chapter One-**

**No More Lab Coats**

Allison Cameron yawned and stretched out her arms, only realizing after a few seconds that she was in someone else's. She slowly opened her eyes and lifted her head from the crook of Robert Chase's neck to see his handsome face. She smiled and ran a finger over the bridge of his nose and down to his lips, then snaked her arm around his neck.

After a few minutes of just lying in the still sleeping Robert's arms, Allison brought herself to look at the clock beside his bed, then jolted upright.

9:12 am

"Shoot! Oh, crap!" she jumped out of bed, unwrapping herself from the tangled mess of sheets on the bed. She reached down and picked up the pair of last nights underwear from the floor and dropped them in the hamper before scurrying around the room, trying to distinguish her clothes from his.

"Wake up! Robert, wake up!" She said hectically as she tried to work herself into last night's bra without having to unhook it.

"Mwuuuuugh…" He moaned, stretching and giving her a questioning look. "What are you so worked up for?"

"Work! We have work! Come on, Robert!" She said, still making a mess of the bra until she gave up and unhooked it.

"Allison, remember? I got fired? You quit?" he smiled playfully, observing her getting dressed. She looked down at herself and gave a small laugh. She was wearing her bra, a pair of jeans, and her old lab coat.

"I don't even think I'm wearing underwear." She said, laughing at herself a little.

"Well, then, thing's aren't all bad." Chase said in his adorable accent.

"Not having work is kind of nice." Allison took a few steps and flopped over on Robert's bed, removing her lab coat as she begun to softly kiss Chase. "We can sleep in."

"Somehow I have a feeling we won't be doing much sleeping." Chase said, wrapping his arms around her waist and rolling over onto her.

-

Dr. Gregory House got out of the elevator of the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, walking down the halls to where his section of the hospital lay. He passed another doctor, Dr. Wilson. He tried his best to do an almost-smile, but Wilson looked down and kept walking. House sighed slightly but kept walking. Entering through the large glass double doors, he suddenly felt a large pang inside. He felt… lonely. It was strange, he thought. He'd been trying to alienate everyone around him his whole life, and now that he'd finally gotten what he "wanted"… it wasn't what he expected.

He was lonely. He missed his team.


	2. Milk on the Floor

**Chapter Two-**

**Milk on the Floor**

Allison sighed happily as she walked down the street that Robert's house was on. They had realized that morning that he had run out of milk, so she, already feeling like the perfect girlfriend, offered to go to the small grocery store down the street to go get some.

She and Chase hadn't had "the talk" yet, and she was beginning to get nervous for when they would. By "the talk", she meant the one about what all of this meant. Would she be ready for a steady relationship, or was this just more meaningless sex? Although she knew the answer, she wanted to make sure that he did; she didn't want to lose him again. She had to find the perfect words to say.

She turned left and opened the door to the impossibly small (and impossible overpriced) Mickey's Groceries. Allison tried to navigate around the store, only about the size of Chase's bedroom, until she found the milk section.

_Oh, shoot, _she thought, staring down at the few bottles of milk, _does he want skim or 1? 2, even?_ She felt slightly disappointed: these were things that a real girlfriend should know. She had been trying to prove to herself that she could do the girlfriend thing: she had had trouble with really being serious with anybody ever since five years ago, when her husband of six months had died. She could also remember Mike, his best friend, and the way she felt safe inside his arms, the way his lips felt across hers…

No.

This was not happening again. She would not screw up. She loved Robert; she knew she had for a while. Why else would she have asked him for their friends-with-benefits relationship? Why else would she have invited him over that one night, many months ago?

She had always known in her sub-conscious that she loved him, but had been too afraid to admit it to the other side of herself that she did. Maybe it was because of the goody-two-shoes part of her that had always told her what was right and wrong.

Wrong: Have a relationship with someone from work.

But then again:

Wrong; Have supposedly meaningless sex all around work with someone from work.

She had always known right from wrong, up from down before. She had always been sure of her own voice, because she knew that what she was saying was proper and correct. But now that she was finally doing something that made her happy? Now she felt like she had to be quiet and hide from those eyes that might disapprove.

"Need any help?" Came a solemn voice from behind her. Allison jumped. She knew that voice. House.

"What? Why are you here, House? It's not just some coincidence that you're in the exact same shop as I am, at the exact same time." Allison didn't want to turn around, didn't want to look into those eyes that she knew could still make her melt. One of the reasons that she was sure she could do "the girlfriend thing" was because she knew that now House wasn't around to "distract" her.

A pause. "I _said_, do you need any help?"

"No. Why?"

"Well, you've been staring at those bottles of milk for over five minutes: that means that there's something on your mind. And your hair is wild and uncombed, so unless this is a fashion thing, it means that you just got out of bed. And considering you live on the other side of Princeton and that you're wearing Chase's T-shirt, I can safely assume that the bed you got out of wasn't yours."

She didn't want to turn around. She wanted to have nothing to do with him, but at the same time, she could already feel herself wanting to have everything to do with him. But…. No. Not again. She knew it would be wrong, and she knew that House could never really love her, not like she knew Robert could- and did.

"No, House. I'm fine. I don't need help." She tried her best to keep her voice calm and steady. "And besides, shouldn't you be at work anyway?"

"Nope. No interesting cases to solve. No puzzles to find pieces for."

"Or, basically, no team to work with."

"Well, that too. Who can I pester now, other than Cuddy?"

There was a long pause. "I'm not coming back."

Allison could not stop herself from feeling his sigh on the back of her neck, could not stop herself from hearing his cane clicking away onto the linoleum floor, could not shut her ears from the tinkling of the bell attached to the door as House walked away.

She had only spoken to him for a matter of minutes, but already she felt more confused about love than she had in a long time.

-

Robert was wearing nothing but his boxer shorts and bathrobe, still smiling about Allison. Whenever he thought about her, he glowed inside, and felt all warm and wonderful. He wanted to spoil her; he wanted to take care of her. However, as he reached for the jam, suddenly a thought hit him: what if this was still just about the sex?

He had been so caught up in Cameron's body, her lips, the way her hair smelled, and that he hadn't even considered the possibility that maybe…. Maybe this was what it had been before: purely physical.

Robert set down the tray he had been preparing for breakfast-in-bed, and fell into one of the wooden chairs in his small dining room, hand to his head. But, no. Hadn't she said that she couldn't wait until Tuesday? Every Tuesday, he had asked her for a steady relationship, so, that meant she must want…

"Hello?" He heard Allison's voce call out as she jingled his keys in the lock. "Hey, look at that! Your key works." She smiled as she held a bag of groceries in one arm. "I didn't know what kind of milk you wanted, so I got all thr- Robert, what's wrong?"

_Play it cool, play it cool, don't seem too needy,_ Robert thought. "Are you serious about this? About me?" _Damn it. God, I sound so lame._

Allison's smile fell, and she dropped the bag containing three pints of milk onto the floor, where, promptly, two of them burst open.

"Robert," She said, her eyes looking wide and slightly scared of her own words, "Robert, I want a relationship. I want love and be loved back. I want you."

Chase looked at her, still holding his keys and being dwarfed by his shirt, standing in the slowly spreading puddle of milk. He stood up from his chair and slowly walked over to her, getting his bare feet drenched by the milk on the floor, but he didn't care. He cupped her chin in one hand and put his other on the small of her back, and then looked into her big, green eyes.

"I want you too." He said, and then he kissed her. Not just some ordinary, daily, husband-and-wife kiss, but the real thing. He kissed her long and hard and firm and soft, and as Allison's head filled with fireworks, all memories of House and their encounter were slowly washed away, along with the milk on the floor.


	3. The Loudest Silence

**Chapter Three-**

**The Loudest Scilence**

"I hate you. Oh, I so hate you."

"House, it's ten o'clock in the morning. You should be at work." Lisa Cuddy said in an exasperated tone.

"I know where I _should_ be, the question is if, in fact, I _want_ to be there." He glared at her with his just-woke-up bloodshot eyes.

"So, that would be a no."

"Yes." He said, and tried to shut the door. Lisa's hand came out to stop it mid-swing.

"You need to come to work, Greg. I know you're trying to avoid it since the team left, but… I mean, you can hire new employees. Life goes on. I would expect you, of all people, to know that." She took her hand from the door and squeezed his arm, rubbing her thumb up and down.

There was an loud, awkward silence as House looked down at her hand, then up into her eyes. She hadn't called him Greg since college. For a second… there was almost something of an understanding between them. Then, suddenly, the moment was over. Cuddy dropped her hand and gazed down at her pink pumps.

"Um. So…"

"What's that?" House said, pointing to the blue folder in her hands.

"Oh!" She said, relieved that the moment of silence had ended. "It's a case."

More silence as she watched Greg's expression.

"What? Are you waiting to tell me about it until the patient dies?"

"21-year-old female. She's paralyzed below the waist."

"So what? Life goes on. She's paralyzed. End of story. It happens every day." He began to turn away.

"House, she's paralyzed as in she can't move. But she can still feel everything."

Greg stopped and slowly turned around. "Houston, we have a problem."

-

"I promise I'm not doing that anymore! I'm not!"

"Yes, you are!"

"I swear to God, I'm not!" Cameron yelled, still wearing her cleaning gloves.

"Oh, you swear? You swear to _God_?" Chase said in a locking tone.

"Yes!"

"Well, that sucks, because guess what? YOU ARE!"

"Chase, you're being a two year old! Why can't you trust me?"

There was a silence. She never called him Chase anymore. It was so informal now.

"Look, this is stupid! I promise I didn't do it!"

"Then what is this?" Robert held up a small bag, obviously holding drugs. It was meth.

They were at her house, and they had been scrubbing the dishes together. Allison was on washing duty, and had accidentally given Robert a pan that still held water, which he accidentally dumped on himself. He had gone upstairs to get himself a new shirt from Allison's sock drawer, where he kept a few spares (there was no more room in any of the other drawers, and she never wore socks anyway, preferring pantyhose). There, at the back of the drawer, he had found the bag.

"If you aren't doing meth, then why was this bag not there yesterday or the day before?"

"It was there! It's been there since that one night last year, and I completely forgot about it! You would have noticed if I was ever stoned! I promise I don't do it, Robert! I promise!" There were tears welling up in her eyes, but she kept on going. "I don't need drugs! It was one night, just on night where I made a mistake. I never got rid of the rest, and I forgot it was there!" She was waving the still sudsy plate above her head.

There was a pause. It was just about the loudest silence in the world.

"Can I trust you?" Chase's voice boomed. God, he looked so hot when he was angry.

"YES! HELL YES!"

"WELL, GOOD! YOU'RE MY GIRLFRIEND! I DON'T WANT YOU TO HURT YOURSELF!"

"I'M NOT HURTING MYSELF!"

"GOOD, BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!"

"WELL, I LOVE YOU TOO!"

There was a momentary silence as they each realized what the other said.

"That's the first time we've said that." Chase said in slight astonishment.

"I know." Came her slightly quiet answer.

"I love you. I _love _you."

"I know. You just said that." Allison laughed a little, wiping away the previous tears from her eyes."

"But, I. Love. You."

"I know. I… I love you too."

She stepped a little closer and slipped her arms around his neck, still wearing her yellow rubber gloves and holding the plate. They didn't kiss, they didn't begin to rip off each other's clothes. They just stood in the middle of the kitchen and held each other, and nothing else mattered. If the world ended, they probably wouldn't have noticed.

**A/N- Ooh, the first fight! Okay, kind of stolen from a scene in friends, but I just couldn't help it. I am totally addicted to Chase/Cameron fluff. But don't worry… next chapter something very exciting will happen (finally, right? LOL)! Anyway, please review, I may make a sort of Chapter 3 ½, but I felt as though this was a good point to stop for now. Anyway, check back soon! (Probably later today or tomorrow mid-morning…) Also, I'm thinking of changing the title. Any suggestions?**


	4. Unfaithful Kisses

**Chapter Four-**

**Unfaithful Kisses**

Allison stared at the tiny calendar beside her bed, running her finger over the red X's on each square. Three weeks. Three long, wonderfully relaxing weeks that she and Robert had been together. It seemed like it had been way too early to say those three little words to each other, but Allison knew that it was right. She knew that she could say what she wanted to Chase, and that he wouldn't care. He loved her for who she was.

Hmm. She felt so warm and wonderful when she thought of him. The way he said those words. The way she fit so wonderfully in his arms. The way…

Suddenly, Allison was brought out from her thoughts by the rude ringing of her cell phone.

"_Pick up your damn phone! Pick up your damn phone!"_ It was House's personalized call. He had recorded it one time when he was screwing around with her phone instead of working clinic hours. She hadn't cared at the time: anything to get him off her back about Robert and her, back when they were first having sex.

House was calling. On _her_ phone. What did he want?

"Cameron." It was the way Allison used to answer her phone when she still worked at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Her memory flashed back to the nights when she and House would be working alone together. That one time she kissed him…

"Quick: causes for paralysis."

"Um… stroke, trauma, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, botulism, poliomyelitis…" she hated herself for giving in to his game so easily. It proved he still had power over her.

"Excellent. You're re-hired."

"No. No, House. I _quit_. That means that _I_ chose to stop working for you. You can't re-hire me."

"Come on. Pwease?" He said in a fake baby voice. He could still control her, and she knew he knew it.

"No."

There was a momentary silence. "Look, I only need you for a couple hours. I swear, that's it. I have a case, and I need an immunologist."

"For what? Paralysis isn't in my field."

"Look, just come. Please. I… I need you."

Cameron spent a moment looking at her phone, then made up her mind. "I'll be right there."

_Click._

-

Chase stared in slight confusment at his nearly empty fridge. Who knew such small girls could eat so much?

"Allison? Allison, I'm going out. We need more food. You seem to have eaten my entire kitchen. Allison?"

No one answered.

"Allison?"

Nothing.

_Maybe she's already out food-shopping, _he thought, but that thought was struck down when he found her wallet on the side of his bed. _Maybe she forgot her wallet?_ But it was more of a question than an actual thought. Curiosity overtook him, and he grabbed her wallet as an excuse to follow her. He glanced out the window and saw her car leaving the parking garage.

_She's hiding something._

-

Gregory House sat in his chair, throwing the large red and grey tennis ball against his wall. He didn't know why he'd called Cameron. He didn't need her advice on the case. He'd already solved half of it, and he didn't need any more advice, particularly not from an immunologist.

He smiled, mocking himself. He loved analyzing people, and now that there was no one left to analyze, he had no one but himself. He knew why he called her. He knew his secret motive. He was hoping for, well, her. It was so ironic that he only realized it when she was gone, but…

_You only realize how much you need the water once the well is dry._

"Hello?" Cameron's voice resounded throughout the room, despite the green carpeting.

He looked up at her slowly, her eyes being the last things that his looked at. Oh, she looked so cute in blue. "Hi." He stood up slowly, leaning on his flaming cane. Wincing slightly, he walked over to her. It took her a moment to realize she wasn't breathing.

-

Chase walked through the large glass double doors of PPTH. Lisa Cuddy saw him and rushed over.

"Did House change his mind? Are you back?"

"Um…" He said, looking upstairs to the elevator, where he could just see Cameron's figure before the doors closed. "No. No, I'm here to pick up some things I forgot."

"From three weeks ago?" She asked skeptically.

"Uh, yeah, and I'm in a bit of a hurry, so if you'll excuse me…" He said, and trailed off as he dashed towards the stairs. He knew where she was going. This was what he had been fearing all along.

-

"I've missed you." House said, looking at Allison's green eyes, being swallowed by them, drowning in those pools of algae green.

"I've… missed…" She whispered, staring distractedly into his own eyes, icy blue oceans within white oblivion. She couldn't think. She wasn't thinking.

There were about three inches between them.

House knew what he was doing. He knew himself better than anybody did, and he knew Allison Cameron better than she did herself. Or, at least, he thought so.

He knew it was wrong; he knew about Chase and how they were sleeping together, if not more. He knew that he didn't deserve her, he knew…

Their lips met. It was new, it was exciting, and at the same time it was old and comfortable. She could feel his stubble on her chin and cheeks. But even though she wanted this… she didn't want this at all. She lifted her hands and put them in between the two bodies, pushing slightly on House's chest, moving him away.

They heard something drop, and both looked over to the direction it came from; over by the glass doors. There Robert stood, Allison's wallet at his feet, with a look of horror and disgust on his face. But most of all, the betrayal in his eyes. He gave Allison one horrid look, and turned down the hallway and began to walk, first slow and then faster and faster, until he was running as if he could escape the horrible images that were playing on repeat in his head.

-

"What the hell were you thinking? I came here to help you, I came here to give you a hand, _as a friend_."

"I may have initiated it, but you sure as hell kissed back!"

"You knew what you were doing! You knew how I used to feel about you!"

"_Used to_?" House looked at her and said, with a more serious tone than she had ever heard him use before, "Look, I'm… I'm sorry. The truth is, I don't like you. I don't even have any feelings towards you at all. I'm sorry. Maybe I was seeking some sort of revenge for you leaving me. I never meant to-"

"Revenge? _Revenge_? If you wanted revenge for me leaving you, Greg House, then there were obviously some sort of feelings there!" And with that, Allison picked up her bag and ran out the door, sobbing with all the emotion of someone who had just killed another person, not broken their heart. But to Allison, it felt the same.


	5. Crossing the Line

**Chapter Five-**

**Crossing the Line**

Allison arrived at her apartment to find the T-shirts gone. Now, all her sock drawer held ware a few pairs of socks.

The picture of him that had been on her nightstand was gone. The stupid spatula that they had gotten in a silly little argument with was gone. She remembered insisting that a spatula was only used to flip pancakes, while he said that spatulas were used to scoop pasta or something. The argument had ended in laughter and kisses. And she had screwed it all up.

She walked over to the trashcan and saw that he had thrown the small blue calendar in it. The red X's through each day blurred together as Allison's eyes filled with tears. He was gone. And there was nothing to bring him back.

-

Robert sat on his bed, holding in his right hand a phone and in his left a photograph. It was the picture of Allison that a famous celebrity photographer had taken when she became a patient at the hospital. Robert was hurt. He wanted to cry and fall to the floor and throw things and push Allison off of some far off cliff, but at the same time, he wanted to call her and hug her and kiss her and apologize for whatever he had done to push her away.

But he knew he couldn't do that. He knew that he had done nothing wrong, other than fall for her. And he had never meant to do that in the first place.

He went around his house and searched for all things Allison. Anything she wore, anything she touched, anything she liked, anything she had ever remarked on. He threw them all in a big box and set it in his hallway, so that if he felt the need to go talk to her, he would see the box and change his mind.

Oh, he was so angry and hurt. He felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach and ripped out his heart at the same time. He had to do _something _to get rid of his anger.

He walked out the door without looking at his break-up box. He stepped into the car and jammed in the keys. Then, quickly, furiously, he drove out of the parking lot, and out into the street as the sun began to set.

-

House sat in his chair again, rubbing his sore leg. He'd screwed up/ He'd hurt two people because he wanted revenge. He had _wanted_ to hurt them. He felt… horrible. Revenge might have been a dish best served cold, but the repercussions of revenge could be even colder.

"Hey. House?" Lisa Cuddy said, knocking timidly on the glass door.

"Hi. Another case?" House said, searching for a folder she should be holding, but there was none.

"No. I'm just… I'm here to check on you. Are you okay? You haven't been pestering me for random tests anymore, and you hardly ever some out of your office. Are you alright?" She said, now sitting down on an empty spot on his desk. "I just want to make sur-"

Suddenly, Robert Chase burst through the doors, and House stood up, looking midly alarmed.

"YOU JACKASS!" Chase shouted, and before House could apologize or Cuddy could stop him, he lashed out and punched House so hard in the nose that a definite crack was heard. "DON'T YOU EVER COME NEAR HER AGAIN, YOU BASTARD!"

House was bent over and his broken nose was bleeding on the floor. Cuddy looked up at Chase to ask, "What did he do?", but Chase was gone.


	6. Storm Clouds

**Chapter Six-**

**Storm Clouds**

Allison was walking down an abandoned street, staring at her shoes. She had been walking for hours, and hadn't once looked up to see where she was going. Her hand was in her purse, where her thumb gently rubbed up and down the spine of her diary. She took it everywhere; always had, always would. It had become a habit of hers to fiddle with her diary when she was deep in thought.

It was getting dark, and dark storm clouds were gathering above. Her shoe got caught in the crack of an uneven sidewalk block, one like so many in the Princeton suburbs. She fell over, and her bag opened, spilling all its contents. It was a large bag, but it only held a few items. Her wallet, her diary, her iPod, and that box she had been afraid to open for days, but had held in her lap every day, thinking of possibilities.

A pregnancy test.

As she picked up the bags contents, she picked up the test last, letting her fingers run over the words on the side. She felt her eyes well with tears, building up like the feelings she had been suppressing for so many days. No matter how many single-mother sites she had visited or how many forums she had read, she couldn't get over the feeling that it was all so wrong.

She had wanted children all her life. She had always dreamed of one day having a husband to cuddle in bed with, a little girl or boy between them. The man in that picture had always been faceless, but in the month that she and Robert had gone out, his face had slowly begun to take over the empty space, and although it had been impossibly early, she has really felt as if that image… fit. Everything about their relationship had come fast; the first kiss (before their relationship started), the first time they'd made love, instead of just meaningless sec. the first time she spent the night at his house, the first time she woke up in his arms. The first time they'd said "I love you". She still kept his sweater in her bed. She'd gotten it that time they went to the beach and it was cold, so she borrowed it from him.

He'd always said she looked so cute in it, the way her small frame was enveloped in his large clothing. She would smell it every night, until two days ago. The smell was slowly fading, as were the memories of their times together.

She shoved the pregnancy test in her bag, dismissing any thoughts of Chase right away. It slowly began to rain on her head as she sat there on the stoop, holding her head in her hands. She began to cry, thinking about her fatherless family. She wouldn't tell him.

It ripped her heart in half, the idea of him not knowing. She knew that he had always wanted kids, from the way that he played with his nieces and nephew. The way he went along with their games, being the horse or the first mate or Captain Hook. She wanted him to do that with their baby, too.

The rain was pounding incredibly hard on the cement, and it was only then that Cameron realized it was, in fact, raining. Her cell phone began to ring, and she saw that the caller was her mother. Reluctantly, she picked up the phone and said, "Hello?", hiding all tears from her voice.

"Hello, dear. Look, I know you probably know this, but there's a terrible storm coming exactly towards Princeton, and they're telling everyone to get inside right away. It's going to flood."

Lighting struck across the dark horizon.

"Mom, don't panic, but I'm nowhere near my house."

"Allie! Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? Get inside, right now! The storm could be coming any moment! You must know someone nearby!"

It began to hail, and lightning struck a tree down the street. A large branch fell and was blown over by the wind, almost hitting Allison, who ducked.

"Mom, it can't be that serious. Its just rain."

"Every channel, even here, is giving warnings for your area! Get inside, anywhere!"

Allison looked up at the street name. Prospect Avenue. Robert's street.

"Okay, Mom. I love you." She said, reluctantly shutting the phone. It meant that she was that much closer to knocking on his door.

She contemplated not going to him, somehow finding another way home, but just then, thunder boomed so loudly and so closely to her that she almost fell over. She felt like she could be carried away by the strong winds at any moment, so she started walking, utterly drenched, towards Robert's house. She got to the dark blue steps, and could see him through a window. He was standing and talking to someone on the phone while running his fingers over a frame. Allison knew that frame. It was the one that they had bought together at the mall, to frame the photo booth pictures they had taken earlier that day. He was tracing his fingers over the picture, and she wanted desperately to go over and kiss him and say sorry and explain and run her hands over that body that she so missed. But she couldn't.

The rain was so thick and unbearable that she began to shiver horribly, and she could hardly move. Robert suddenly looked up through his window, and his mouth dropped open a little. He dropped the phone onto the floor and just spent a moment looking at her, standing to cold and small in the rain. He pushed over the picture frame so it lay, face down, on his table. She pushed herself to walk to the door and ring the doorbell.

Slowly, the door opened.

"What do you want?"

"I need… I need… I have to…"

And suddenly, she fell to the floor, out cold.


	7. The Ultimate Test

**Chapter Seven-**

**The Ultimate Test**

Chase looked at her, lying down on his bed, hair wet, wrapped in a big blue sheet. Her eyelids fluttered a little with every breath she took. It hurt him to look at her, hurt him to see how beautiful she still was. In a way, he had kind of hoped that she would be horrible without him, that she couldn't survive.

He was surprised that he himself had survived.

She had collapsed from cold, so he had stripped her of her soaked clothes and bad and put her in his boxer shorts and T-shirt. He hated that she was wearing his clothes again. It was almost as if they were back together. He wanted to leave her there on his bed, asleep, so that he could leave and go away. So far away that she and his love for her would never find him.

Undressing her had been horrible. To see her smooth skin, to know that he could never touch it again, it had been torture. He wanted to go downstairs and sleep on the couch, to hide from her and her beauty, but he knew he couldn't. He had to take her temperature every hour and check her pulse, then rub her chest in ointment. Doing that- touching her… it made him want to dance and kill himself at the same time.

He also had to go through her purse, to check for any more meth. If she had collapsed from a drug overdose, then she had to be taken to the hospital. But he couldn't bring himself to check. He didn't want to know, yet he had to know. He told himself that the reason he didn't want to check was because it was wrong to go through a woman's purse, but the truth was that if she was using, it would hurt him more than he could take, and he knew that.

But he had to check. For her.

-

A pregnancy test.

It sat there, on the table, slightly damp from the rain before, mocking him, taunting her.

An unused pregnancy test.

She thought she was pregnant?

He was so pathetic. When he saw it, his heart had leapt a little. He wanted it to be true. He wanted her to be pregnant, so he could have an excuse to stay with her. He wanted to be in the delivery room, to hold his screaming child and kiss his sweating girlfriend.

He wanted to marry her one day, to see her in a white wedding dress, to hold a child between them, to grow old together.

But he didn't know if she was pregnant. That was the thing. The test was unused, mocking him, a sign of something that could also not have been true. He wondered how many days late she was. Had she had any morning sickness? Oh, he would give anything to hold back her hair for her.

He was pathetic, a fool in love. Because, yes, he loved her. He loved every freckle on her body, every hair on her head, every word from her mouth.

It was then that a thought hit him. What if it was House's baby? What if she had slept with him, what if the child wasn't his?

It felt as though he had lost half his heart, not a possibly inexistent child. Oh, what if it was House's child?

He would forgive her. He loved her that much. If it was House's baby, then, he swore to God, he would still raise it and love it as his own. He would forgive her. He loved her to the world's end, and she would need someone. She needed him, and he needed her even more.

So, as he stood up, he made up his mind, and picked up his car keys from the table, leaving the pregnancy test and all the questions it proposed on the table.


	8. Engadgment Rings

**Chapter Eight-**

**Engagement Rings**

Chase and Cameron had been apart for a month and a half, during which, he had gotten a job at Princeton Hospital. The pay hadn't been as much as back at PPTH, but it had been enough to keep him going. As he stood in front of the large glass display cabinet, admiring the rings and then flinching at the prices, he could feel the eyes of the sales clerk boring into his back. He had been there for almost an hour, and he could feel the sales people getting impatient. He knew they all wanted to leave. He was the only one left in the store, all the other customers had gone home in the storm. He knew he was being ridiculous, but he wanted to choose a ring and choose it now. This had to be perfect.

"I want this one."

-

Allison woke up in Chase's sheets, in Chase's clothes, and Chase on her mind. She could remember nothing that had happened since she fell on that sidewalk crack and her bag spilled open. Why was she here? Had she and Chase made up? Slowly, she got out of bed.

"Robert? Robert, are you there?" She walked down the stairs, slowly, cautiously, until she reached the bottom. She was freezing, and she couldn't help shaking with every step that her bare, weak feet made on the cold linoleum floor. Then she saw the pregnancy test on the kitchen table, and her head floored with cold fear. Robert knew. He knew that there was a chance that she was pregnant, and he had left her, all alone in his house.

The rain was hitting the windows harshly, and lightning struck across the skies. Cameron shivered and picked up the test. It was time. She had to know.

-

Chase could barely see through the storm. His radio flicked on and then shut off completely. It didn't matter. They had all only broadcast warning signs anyway. Thank God he was going home.

Finally, Chase made it. He parked his car in front of the house, counted to three, and then opened the door and ran towards his house. Once under the shelter of the little roof above his door, he found his keys and shoved them in the door. He opened it and then slammed it shut behind him, leaving the rain outside.

"Allison?" she should have been up by now.

"Robert? Is that really you? I thought you had left me!" Allison ran into the room, and fell into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably. They held each other for a moment, before realizing that they couldn't hold each other.

_What was I thinking? She loves House. She can't ever be with me. I'm ridiculous._ Chase thought, as he rubbed his thumb over the ring box.

_What am I thinking? I can't do this. He doesn't love me anymore. I kissed house. I'm using him._ Cameron thought, still crying.

"Come on." Robert said, walking to the living room. He needed to talk to her.

She wasn't moving. He took her hand and walked her into the living room like a mother teaching her daughter to walk. There, he saw that on a wad of paper towels lay the pregnancy test, face down. He gave Cameron a questioning look, and she pointed to the timer. Two minutes left.

Without saying anything, he sat her down.

"I need to ask you some things. Important things."

"What?"

Chase brought himself to look up in to her eyes. "Did you... did you sleep with House?"

"No. God, no."

Chase smiled a little with relief. "Did you mean to kiss him?" he was hoping for too much, he knew it.

"Yeah… kind of."

Robert's heart sank. "Why?"

"I don't know." They both glanced nervously at the timer. One minute left.

"Do you think it will ever happen again?"

"No. Not ever. I don't love him. I hardly even like him."

"Do you… Do you still love me?"

There was a silence as she looked meaningfully into his eyes. "Yes. I do."

"Alright. One last question."

"Go ahead."

"Will you marry me?"

The timer dinged.


	9. The Most Important Thing

**Chapter Nine-**

**The Most Important Thing**

For a moment, they both stared at the pregnancy test. Case was still holding the ring box, but he dropped it, open, on the couch. They just looked at the test.

"Can you imagine… if it was true?" Cameron asked.

"Yes. I can imagine."

"Would you… would you want to keep it?"

"Of course. It's our baby."

"Do you think it'll be a girl or a boy?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if you _are _pregnant."

"Should I… should I turn it over?"

"Yeah. Probably."

She reached out, then took her hand back. "I can't do it."

"Me neither." He said.

They spent a few minutes staring at it, still facedown, Robert holding Allison's hands in his.

"I think if it's a girl, we should name it Amy."

"No, Amy was the name of my first girlfriend."

"Oh. How about… Amanda?"

"Hey, who's saying it's a girl?"

"Do you want it to be a boy?"

"Maybe."

"We could dress him up in little sneakers."

"I could teach him catch."

"We could… Robert?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think we should get married?"

"Yeah, that's kind of why I proposed." He said, laughingly, but inside, his heart was beating. "Will you marry me?"

There was a horrible silence. 'No." She finally said.

"Why not? This baby needs a mother and a father!"

"You don't want to marry me because you love me, but because I'm pregnant. If and when I marry, it will be about love."

"But I do love you!"

"No you don't. You just think the baby needs parents."

"And what if I do?"

The timer beeped again, signaling five minutes since the test had been ready. The two looked at each other and then both lunged for the pregnancy test, wrestling each other for it.

"It's my baby! I deserve to know!" Cameron said.

"What? As opposed to it not being mine?" Chase yelled. Cameron got free and stood up, turning away from Chase.

"What is it? What does it say?"

"It's…" She turned around. "Negative."

"Oh." There was a definite sense of disappointment for both of them.

"I should probably… go." Cameron said, dropping the pregnancy test in the garbage, and picking up her bag from the floor. "Bye, Robert." She said, and slipped on her flip-flops. She turned the handle of the door, gave him one more look, and left, to walk out into the pouring rain, leaving Robert alone with his ring and his thoughts.

He sat there on his couch for a moment, fingering the ring while he slowly rocked back and forth. Outside, Allison sat on the steps and rocked back and forth too, thinking about the life she had just left behind.

Robert looked up to the table, where he saw Allison's diary. He walked over and picked it up, then began to walk to the door.

Allison stood up and began to walk home through the rain, which she didn't notice.

Robert ran through the doorway and down the steps, then cried out, "Allison!". She turned around, and he was there, in front of her, panting and holding her diary, and, in one impulsive but sure motion, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed the life out of him, until he had to choice but to kiss her back and hold her and love her.

"I want you." She whispered.

"I need you." He said, and kissed her again.

"I… I love you." She said, and she knew in that instant that it was true. She wanted and needed and loved him, and she knew he felt the same. She knew he would always be there and that he would always want her and that he would always love her to the end of her days, until they were old and grey.

They kissed passionately in the rain, and he ran his hands over her and looked into her eyes and he knew that she would never leave him. He memorized every detail on her face and knew that he didn't have to, because he would wake up to see it every morning. "Work has always been the most important thing in my life. It was always work over love or family or friends. But maybe work isn't the most important. I think… I think maybe you are."

She looked at him and felt the water on her back and in her hair and in her eyes. But the water in her eyes wasn't rain. Her legs were still wrapped around his waist, her arms around his neck.

"Allison Cameron,"

"Yes?"

"Allison Cameron, will you marry me?"

"Yes. Oh, God, yes!"


	10. Important!

Hey all!

This could be considered fairly important, so if you care about this story or the characters, please read.

I am considering writing a sequel for the story, both for my own sake (to get those creative juices flowing) and for the sake of the readers (as I've had quite a few requests). However, this story has mostly fallen off the radar due to it having been written over a year ago and being about a couple who no one sees anymore, and, honestly, I'm not sure if anyone still cares. I'm not asking because I want more reviews, but because I really want to know: if you want me to write a sequel to this story, please leave a review telling me so- feel free to then leave any ideas or other comments for me regarding it.

If you like my writing style but are a bit over Chase and Cameron, please leave a review telling me which couple or scenario you would want me to write about- Foreman and Thirteen? House and Cuddy? Let me know.

Happy reading!

Love,

Rai


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